Worshipping at the altar of tech.

Shortly before we moved into this house, my father in law bought a brand new top of the line LCD TV. We marveled at the clarity, and my TheBoy began wishing he had one.

The day we moved into the house, he took his little brother to the store and came home with one for our bedroom (as well as a wall mount). Not kidding at all.

We’re a big TV family. While I’ve gotten a little bit better, I was one of those people who would watch 2 hours of TV every single night, and DVR at least one extra hour because of conflicts. Now I’m down to about 10 shows I watch in total, DVRing them all because of the kidlets and my writing schedule.

And my kids watch a fair amount of television. Most of it is educational(ish), and even though the TV is on all day long, the kids are staring at it all day. It’s on while they play, and occasionally they stop to watch their favorite shows.

Saturday morning, we were waiting for TheBoy to wake up so that we could go to Disneyland. I got the boys their breakfast and turned on the TV, so that we could put on Pirates of the Caribbean- because this was going to be the trip to Disneyland where the Oldest Kidlet went back on PoTC (more on that some other time). Then suddenly the picture went out. I could still hear the TV, but no picture.

We told my father-in-law. He realized that the TV was dead, and felt bad that he couldn’t go out and get another one that day (he had plans). But it worked out with the Disneyland trip. So the next morning he went out with TheBoy’s little brother, and came home with a GIANT box, containing a top of the line 55″ TV. With the crispest picture I’ve ever seen. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me tweet while I got used to the clarity. Watching Fellowship of the Ring, it looked as though you were in the same room- more like watching a play than watching a movie. A lot of the luminous quality was gone, but you could feel as though you were in Middle Earth. Frel, I could practically feel the grease in Boromir’s hair.

It took about a day of getting used to (since I wasn’t watching shows uninterrupted- I had to get up and do parental things), but now it isn’t so shocking to me.

It also has built in wifi and apps, so you can literally use Netflix with the push of a button. During the day (when nobody else is home, and I don’t have to worry about bogging down our network) the kids and I are having a field day with Netflix. It’s great- definitely easing up our overloaded DVR since we can access a lot of their favorite shows.

If I’ve sold you on this TV just by my description, it’s a VIZIO 55″ Smart TV 1080p w/ a 120hz refresh rate. I don’t know the model, but so far, we’re REALLY enjoying this TV. Obviously, not a paid endorsement. I’m just in love with a fancy new gadget- nothing new, really.

Now I’m curious about the higher frame rate version of The Hobbit. Hmm.